


In His Arms Lies Eternity

by ashtopop



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Body Image, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Post-Canon, Rite of Tranquility, Suicide, The Fade, Tranquil Inquisitor, Trespasser DLC spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4832978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chantry got one thing right. If in his arms laid eternity, she wanted to remain at least that long. But, of course, she couldn't. Post-Trespasser DLC, spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sanctuary

"You have to stop sending spies," she said. He chuckled, his arm acting as a pillow behind his head.

"No."

She sighed, tucking her chin into the plains of his chest. He smelled like the woods, but she stamped out the urge to ask him where he slept.

"I'll just keep sending them back to you," she warned, despite knowing it was an empty promise.

"I am aware," he said. His finger trailed down her face—where Dirthamen's vallaslin had once marked, though he seemed to forget she was once marked for shadow and deceit—and his face softened. “ _Vhenan_ -"

Her heart dropped, willing him not to say the words—to allow them a few more moments of peace. "Fine," she said, a falsely bright note in her voice as she spoke over him. "Send your spies. You can keep mine, too."

His eyes traced over her features, drinking her in, unsure when he'd see her next. A too-rare wry smile graced his lips.

"So long as you stop asking them to perform welfare checks. I am very old, Inara. I can take care of myself." Her expression turned for a moment and he chastised himself. They had so little time together — still more than they should have—too little to mar with a lifetime of hunting alone. She turned against him, her lips so close to his bare chest that when she spoke they whispered over the skin.

“I worry about you,” she said, her voice small, soft. Like she was afraid he would leave her again if she felt too deeply, cared too much. He brushed his fingers through her messy plait, the dark strands settling against his skin. He tried not to feel the anguish pulling at him: the certainty that what he’d done to her—continued doing to her—was unforgivable, but it was the lesser of his great mistakes. Yet losing her was unthinkable. There was every possibility of it in the coming days, but he’d always felt the weight of her mortality in ways she didn’t. Mortals died of simple things burned away by magic before the Veil rose, and remnants of his magic had nearly killed her mere months before.

"Did you get the pigments I sent you?" she asked. He knew their time together was coming to an end, duties and responsibilities pressing in on them like the veil. Exactly like, he thought with a wry twist of lips that wasn't exactly the smile it was before. Even here, he should be spending his sleeping hours amongst spirits of guidance. Every moment spent together was hinged with _lathbora viran_ , what the Orlesians called "la splendor des coeurs perdus". Yet he could not bring himself to regret it in this, their sanctuary, her body curled against him.

"Yes. Yes, of course. They are extraordinary." She nodded and her hair fell against his skin, the smell of flowers — the one's they'd found in Ameridan's shrine?—heightened by the Fade. “And are you… well?” he asked. She stiffened.

“You know I am not,” she said, a reprimand in her voice. She pulled away from him, sitting up, her body backlit by the Fade’s glow. Her left arm, moments ago whole, had faded to an abrupt end. She buried her face in her hand.

He sat up, following her, resting his forehead on her bare shoulder blade. No words were necessary for what she mourned, just time to adjust and assurance that she would. Another consequence of his many errors. He leaned down to kiss where her forearm once began, but she flinched away from him. He saw fear in her eyes before it was shuttered.

“I’m ruining it, aren’t I?” she said with a half-hearted smile. The arm was back now, figment made terribly tangible by her grasp on the Fade. She stood, pacing to the fireplace, and again he followed.

“No more than I,” he said, twisting his arms around her waist from behind. She shook in his arms and he pulled back, concerned. “Inara? I-" He was certain she was crying, but her tears were rare—spared only for the fate of the human Cole had once been or what Dorian’s father tried to turn her friend into. She cried for Taven and for Bull, when he chose his people over the only home he’d ever known. Solas knew something of that choice.

“I just wanted more time,” she said, shaking her head at her foolishness and steeling herself for what she had to say. "You have to move on,” she said, turning to him. She put her hands on his shoulders and gave them a small shake. He stared into amber eyes, saying nothing. “In your new world. I want you to move on.” Realization hit him and he opened his mouth, but she continued, resolute. "You should be with someone who can be with you forever. Don’t hunt alone, Solas.” With her right hand she gripped her other arm as it flickered back to the stump, her hand closing on solid flesh.

“ _Vhenan, Telanadas_ -" It was the first time he’d allowed himself to entertain the notion aloud that the modern elves, especially mages already connected to the fade, might survive the chaos to come. But it was a hand thrown out over a cliff, and she knew it. He said nothing was inevitable, but she remembered Ameridan and Telana. She’d paid homage at the shrine where Solas once said many forgot him.

“Stop, stop, Solas. I’m not whole. I don’t belong in the new Arlathan,” she looked away, her eyes out the window, and he took his chance to grab her shoulders. Dark, freckled cheeks and wet amber eyes met his as he pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was not about pleasure, but emotion. Communication.

“I am not whole without my heart, correct? Yet she stands before me,” he said, but her lips turned in a frown and she gave a small, stubborn shake of her head.

“Don’t act like it’s the same. We both know it isn’t."

“Of course it isn’t. _Ir abelas_. I… have wronged you in so many ways,” he said, words sincere and considered as they always were. She sighed at his martyrdom, annoyance flaring within her.

“I am not more wood for your pyre, _Solas_. But I’m not elvhen,” she said, putting extra emphasis on the “h” used to denote her people’s ancestry—his people—at his flinch. “Would you ever be able to look at me and not see your failures to the People—no matter how much blood writing you scrub away? All that I am is not a reflection of all that you lost.”

“Everything you have accomplished, you earned. Everything the People were and can be, you are. _Ar lath ma_.” He couldn’t shake the thought that this was her final rejection, a thought solidified by the fine tremor running through her body and the tears dripping off her chin.

“ _Vhenan._ I miss you so much,” she said, clutching him. “You’re all gone now,” she said with a little choking chuckle, putting her hand on his chest. “I’m glad. I don’t want you to think it’s your fault. Tell Dorian I love him and I’m so- I’m so proud,” Solas could feel fear thud through his chest as she spoke through the sobs. What was she-? “Cole… Cole will know, I think. I told Arla to run. They’ll never catch a hart on Fereldan steeds.”

“Fereldan steeds?” he asked, his voice hardening to stone. “Where are you?”

“I’m here with you. That’s all that matters,” she whispered. “ _Ar lath ma._ ” She kissed him, her hand curling behind his neck and the moisture on her cheeks on his. It was raw emotion: powerful and potent in the Fade. Even now he could feel spirits gathering to watch. When she let go, her eyes focused on his, but the her edges were going ragged, pulled away from the Fade bit by bit. She would hurt herself if she remained too long after waking, but surely she knew that.

He tasted his lips. Magebane, but not meant for him. He grabbed her shoulder as she faded.

“Where are you?”

“I’m so scared,” she stumbled out. “I’m so glad I got to see you first,” she held his cheek, her eyes burning into him as she tried to sear his image on her memory. He could feel a surge of mana within her as she fought back reality for a moment longer with him. She would be depleted when she woke, even without the magebane.

“Solas—Fen’Harel _—ar lath ma_!” she panted between pained screams as shreds of herself returned to reality.

“Ar lath-" he clutched at her fingertips, but she was gone before he finished. Magebane, Fereldan steeds… before the war that would have meant only one thing—Templars. But _now_? Though Commander Cullen had stepped down, respect of the Inquisition had kept the unsullied remainder of Templars leashed. Solas had immense power now, and cast a net of magic over the Fade. He could follow her tie to it back to her. Just to make sure she was alright, he assured himself, though his heart pumped hard in fear. He’d never seen her so scared. He'd thought... he'd thought she was leaving him. A part of it had even hoped for it. Before. _It would be easier in the long-run_ , he'd said. 

He searched for her tie to the Fade, standing in what was their sanctuary. Instead, he found nothing, not even lingering in the parts of the Fade she loved best. Severed. To have shielded him from it until the last possible moment… she must have known what she was doing. His heart was tranquil, but he howled in rage, shifting mid-stride as he ran to the nearest eluvian.

_ But losing you would... _


	2. Tranquility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Implied attempted sexual assault (nothing graphic, but feel free to skip this chapter with the knowledge that Templars awful and it does. not. go. over. well.)

He barked orders at his lieutenants and settled before the map in his tent, mentally charting known and open eluvians before he even reached it. He could open them, repair them, but it would take time he did not have. He needed to reach the Frostback Basin as soon as possible. Sooner. While with the Inquisition he’d seen too many atrocities visited upon Tranquils to assume her treatment at the hands of her captors would be much better. He ground his teeth.

His newest lieutenant stepped into the tent, leather flap closing behind him. Without a word, he watched Solas pour over the maps, eyes tracing possible routes in a spiderweb. The closest route to Ameridan’s shrine let out in the old Tevinter fortress that once housed Hakkon. Once useless due to the winter shards and impassable ice wall, it wasn’t far from his destination.

“I’m going with you,” the lieutenant said, stepping into the light. Silas gave him a passing glance, but said no more to dismiss him. “I am going with you, _Dread Wolf_ ,” he said again. He didn’t flinch when Solas whirled on him, cold fury in his eyes. The youngest of his lieutenants had a will forged of blood and lyrium despite his age, a mere pup amongst those who could count their ages in millennia.

Fenris. The little wolf.

He remembered from Varric’s tales that Fenris had once stood with the Templars, but his change of heart was never laid out in text. Was it the red lyrium or the red ribbon that had changed his mind? Either way, his love for the Champion ran deep enough he’d put aside hunting slavers for his best shot at freeing her from the Fade, and now Solas aimed to do the same.

The battle of wills broke when Solas gave him a curt nod, sweeping out of the tent. With a pinch of mana so meaningless to the sea he now controlled, Solas opened the eluvian stationed at the farmost edge of camp and strode through it, not waiting to see if Fenris followed him through the complicated dance of ruins and mirrors.

When they arrived, Solas inhaled, breathing in the scent of flowers that had (moments ago, it seemed) hung in Inara’s hair.

* * *

She knew she had not wanted to become tranquil. Feared it, even before the Templars surrounding her had decided on it. She could even remember why: a fear of blankness, _the nothing_ scrawled on a false gravestone, skulls in a locked house, but she no longer felt fear. She felt… tranquil.

A placid lake. A stone dropped in would not cause a ripple, just sink to the bottom of her.

She worked to make their dinner, mixing herbs and cooking as her Keeper taught her. Once she would have burned it all, distracted by frivolities, but now her single-minded focus meant the rabbits cooked evenly and to specification.

One, Ser Douglass, told her to go to his tent and wait for him.

“Really?” One of the other Templars inquired. “A one-armed Avaar slut?” Ser Douglass stuck another piece of rabbit in his mouth, grease flecking the outer corners of his lips as he chewed mid-guffaw.

“She only needs the one hand,” he said. The other Templars laughed, metal armor rattling with the sound. She did as instructed, opening the tent flap and kneeling inside. The tent smelled strongly of lyrium and stale sweat, the bedroll fully turned out. Empty lyrium bottles lined the bedroll’s head, set out in an empty line.

The tent flap opened, but the armored man that stepped in was no Templar.

“Solas,” she said. He dropped to his knees before her, taking her face in his hands. He looked how he looked when Wisdom died. His eyebrows slanted down, his lips turned in a deep frown. He grieved for her, she realized, for the her she used to be.

_ It hurts. It always does, but I will survive. _

She tried a placid smile to reassure him, but he shook his head at the attempt.

“You must come with me,” he said, pulling away, outside the tent.

“Ser Douglass has instructed me to wait here,” she said.

“Ser Douglass has recinded that order,” Solas said, his jaw clenched. She nodded and clambered out of the tent, her legs gone to sleep.

“Are you-" she began as she stepped out, interrupted by the sight before her. "I did not hear a fight," she said, her eyes surveying the devastation outside the tent. She might have expected statues like he’d created before, but her templar captors laid in pools of their own blood, armor rent. Nearby, another elf stood, large sword unsheathed, but also unbloodied.

This devastation was not his doing. It was Solas’. Solas nodded to the elf and he sheathed the sword behind his back.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Away from here,” he said, turning away from the destruction he wrought. She picked a path after him, and, aware of her bare feet, carefully stepping around bodies where he merely stepped over them.

* * *

Perhaps he should ask Fenris to plunge a his hand into his chest and take the fragile heart out. It beat an irregular rhythm, hammering in his chest as he watched the woman who was Inara plod along behind him. Once distracted by passing fancies like elfroot to pick or nugs to play with, her focus was now unmatched, a blazing sword branded by lyrium on her brow where Dirthamen's owl once flew.

Of course the Templars had remembered to change brands once they broke with the Chantry. Couldn’t have the Chantry taking credit for all of those harmless,  _defenseless_ mages, could they?

He wished he would not have killed them before he found her. He did not even know which fearful face had been the Ser Douglass surely about to- No. He had to focus on reversing the rite, which could only be done by bringing the Fade to bear, part or parcel.

To see her made a slave inside her mind when the mind was the last free refuge, even of slaves… She was not meant for mindless obedience stripped of individuality. She, whose spirit burned so bright she lit wildfires in the Fade as she dreamt, the essences of spirits shaped by her dreaming will. He closed his eyes in pain.

He would fix her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fenris cameo! So, in my canon state Mia Hawke was romantically entangled (this could be metaphorical or literal) with Duncan pre-Ostagar and credits him with her ability to haul Carver out of there and get back to Lothering. Now that Carver is a Grey Warden there's no way she'd let the Grey Wardens suffer, even if she isn't Loghain's biggest fan, so she sacrifices herself in the Fade. So... at some point Fenris joins the Dread Wolf's cause for one singular reason: get Hawke back. It's single-minded grief, tbh, that I'd like to explore more but realistically probably won't in this story, so I hope you guys don't find it too unrealistic :) The gang's back next chapter!


	3. Desperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are back in town. Discussion of Suicide.

She is lost no matter whether he brings down the Veil or not, so is it truly kindness to restore her from tranquility? It is not lost on him that in the world he destroyed, her current state would be an impossibility—that even if the elves were yet enslaved he would have her. Would that choice have been enough to stop him?

He thinks not. He wanted to be there to guide the People after he created the Veil, of course, but he could not have been. Acting as a vessel and focus for the sheer amount of power required sent him into a sleep he was surprised to wake from. More surprised to see what destruction the Veil had wrought—all his favorite places and refuges of the People torn down and defiled. The elven baths ran cold and the spires crumbled. The paths through eluvians fell and were later corrupted by the Blight he probably had a hand in creating as well.

Selfish pride. It is fitting that he bears the same name as his hubris. Looking at Inara's blank face as she sorts through supplies, absurdly focused on the menial task, he knows he cannot leave her in that state, even if it means his goal will be pushed back after the usage of power. He has time to consolidate more, after all, but the longer she remains tranquil the more damaging its emotional effects may be. And she will need people. People to help her and care for her... people who were better for her than him.

A small part of him remembers the words he once said: "remember your goals, and do nothing that does not further them." He disregards his own advice in bringing the former Inquisitor back from tranquility of course—she being perhaps the only worthy foe he has yet encountered to his plan. Not to mention her at least partial knowledge of the breadth of his plan. Maybe once he could have deluded himself into thinking it would be better for the people if he left her as she was, but now he knew she represented the best of the People after the Veil. When it fell, for inevitably her resistance would fail, they would need elves like her. The influx of magical abilities would be staggering and they would need those able to lead and teach. A Herald of a new world order.

And he needed her. Needed her to remind him what he was fighting for, even as they fought against each other with dead drops and secrets, cards held close to their chests but as far from their hearts as possible.

But, for the moment at least, he could remove the cosmetic evidence marring the skin of her face. He gestured for her to sit next to him when she paused in her work and she straightened, moving to sit by him as gracefully as ever.

When he was silent, looking upon her in his own contemplation, she broke into his thoughts.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked, simply. He flinched.

"No. No, vhenan. I do not think I could," he said, reaching for her hand. She allowed him to take it, but continued staring at him in intense concentration.

"You should," she said, her voice matter-of-fact. "I know I would have wanted it. I almost asked, before." He tried to interrupt her, to talk her back from this mental ledge he hadn't realized she was approaching. Cassandra hadn't mentioned tranquils were suicidal, but Samson's tranquil—Maddox—had committed suicide and burned their operation down around him in his determination to save Samson. "I will distract you. I know my presence hurts you."

"Not as much as your death would hurt me. Inara, you cannot truly believe I would- that I would even consider-"

“No, I apologize for upsetting you. I did not think you would. You should, though. You have much to do."

He clenched his jaw and looked away, tongue pressed against his teeth. "No," he said, voice firm. "Absolutely not. Do not suggest it again.” She nodded, her own logic superseded by the order. Even that turned the knife in his gut, for Inara has never been one to take orders—though he was glad that, just this once, she would.

After he removed the branded sword of mercy from her brow, he sent runners through the eluvians to those select few he—and she—will need. Cole, more "human” now, would not be suitable for the actual act of bringing her back, but Compassion would be invaluable after. Varric and Dorian because they are kind and know her in her bones. They are those she is closest to, and they are but few he does not mind trusting with a small piece of his plan if it secures her safety and wellbeing. 

Cassandra will not be coming, though he knows the Seeker’s knowledge and research into the Rite of Tranquility would be useful, particularly in the recovery process. She is too rigid in her loyalty to the chantry, so much so that her friendship with the former Inquisitor would not supersede it, no matter the wrong done in the name of the Templars supposedly under the Seeker’s gaze.

At his call, they would come. For now, that would have to be enough.

* * *

"Call me vindictive, Varric, but I'm starting to wish your scruffy Mage friend had blown up a few more chantries," Dorian said, fingers worrying his moustache into unfashionable limpness. Varric lifted his ale to the statement even as Fenris, hovering nearby, snorted, but their eyes remained fixed on the silent woman. She’d already had words with Solas about bringing them here, upsetting them on her account, her unchanging state, but he waved them away.

"Blondie would be perfect,” Varric said, peering into the depths of his mug to avoid her vacant eyes. “Justice—or Vengeance, whatever it was—brought tranquils back from… wherever they are. One more reason to keep him away from the Gallows."

"Hmm. A pity he isn't available. He could join Solas' merry quest to bring the world down upon our ears.”

“Shit, Sparkles. Even if he was…” he gave Inara an apologetic glance, though she was and would be unaffected by his story, "the mage he brought back wasn’t right. Wanted Anders to kill him before he forgot again.”

Solas’ eyes flashed to Inara, sitting calmly amongst those she had once called friends.

“I suggested much the same,” she said. “I do not want what I know to be used against you all, nor to continue to upset you every time you look at me.” Varric’s humoring expression dropped to serious in a moment.

“Has Chuckles been interrogating you?”

“No,” she said, “He has always been fully aware our actions and plans.” Solas grimaced. He might have preferred if that particular detail had remained between them, but this emotionless Inara did not mind outing herself as a traitor, even if neither Dorian nor Varric seemed surprised.

"Templars did this. It was not… personal. It was violence of habit,” Solas cut in. “They thought she was Avvar, given the area and her dress.”

“She is Avvar,” Cole said. His eyes hadn’t moved from Inara in the time he’d joined them, staring at her like a puzzle that was particularly painful to solve. “Inara First-Thaw of Stone-Bear Hold, not Lavellan, not anymore. They died and no one said a word.”

“Cole. Please stop. You are hurting them,” she said.

“They hurt _you_ ,” Cole said. “They should know.” She shook her head.

“I don’t hurt anymore, Cole.”

“But you _should_ ," Cole said. A testament to how human he’d become and how inhuman she had. At that, Solas stood.

“Preparations will be complete in the morning. Your tents are marked,” he met Varric and Dorian’s suspicious, pained eyes. “Do not stray from them.” He walked away, but Dorian followed. Fenris watched him with suspicion, tense and ready to grab the sword strapped to his back.

“What happens when you reverse the rite?” Dorian asked in a harsh whisper, eyes on Inara where she sat with Varric and Cole. “Will you leave her again? Abandon her for your supposed duty?” Solas sucked in his cheeks.

“She has never been abandoned,” he said, voice even.

“ _Vishante kaffas_ , Solas. Do you even believe that?” Dorian stepped in front of him. Solas could feel sentinels in the trees, ready to head off the Tevinter mage if it came to that, but he signed them away. “She is one of the people you want so desperately to restore. She deserves better from you.”

“Yes,” he agreed. Dorian sighed.

“Don’t agree. Do better. She will need you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there's going to be at least one more chapter? Maybe two.


	4. Agitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inara gets her groove back.

It was a lightning bolt searing through her  
green glass shattering cracks glowing brighter, brighter  
a hand thrown out to take back the sky.

it was a sword through the ribs too intimate for outside the bedroom  
the metal pulled out and the damage assessed  
half made whole, but not whole, an eluvian once shattered never  
broken.

She shakes or the world shakes and  
an embrium flower presented for ear not supplies  
nug feet and reshelving chantry texts  
wood shavings and beeswax  
ale and lyrium and and and

It all has meaning but it can’t  
if it does it’s all real  
she’s real.

The heraldic sword of mercy blazes in her vision  
an afterburn of the sun, burning like it, like the pyre.

It is no more the graceful, gentle, enlightening touch of Faith Cassandra had described than the Maker’s bosom Hawke had expected of the physical Fade, but it ends in time. Time, the salve of all wounds. Almost as good as elfroot.

She didn’t feel sad. She felt… elated. Enraged. Full—full to bursting. She felt like she had to flex inside her skin with the things she could remember and feel. And she was sobbing, hard and harsh into what appeared to be an oven mitt. When she looked up, tear-streaked and snotty, Cole stared into her eyes with his depthless, cloudy gaze.

“Mala suledin nadas," he said. A sharp inhale at his words became the gasp of one saved from drowning. She sat up, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and tracking down her cheeks like salty vallaslin, scarred but whole. She felt like water poured back into a leaky jug—and, like the child of the tales, tried to stick her finger in each new crack.

Inara, now sat up, found Dorian’s eyes where he was kneeling next to the spirit-boy. Choking into the fine silk of Dorian's shirt, she found her words, harsh and staccato between deep, shaking inhalations.

"'Screaming on the inside,'" she said, a fragment that spoke too much to supposed tranquility. Dorian recognized his words spoken back to him and squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled her closer, one hand on the back of her head, hugging her as tightly as he could.

"Never again," he whispered into her hair, planting a kiss on her temple. “Never again, my friend.” She nodded into his hair.

“H-how long?”

“Four days,” he said, looking over her shoulder for confirmation.

“That’s all?” she asked, voice small. He put his hand on her shoulder as Cole appeared at his.

"She thinks that if she turns around you'll fade away. She tries to count birds against the sun, doesn't mind going blind, but Despair is stronger than Hope.” Dorian coughed, moving his hand from Inara’s shoulder to Cole’s and steering him away.

“We’ll be over here,” he said, with something underlying his tone. He glared over her shoulder as he led Cole away to Varric and another person among the tents.

Solas put a hand on her shoulder, but left the choice to turn around in hers.

Finally, she did, her wide eyes beholding him. His hand fell from her shoulder when she turned, but she pressed the palm of her hand to his cheek.

“I’m sorry, I’m feeling so many things and I just don’t remember how to wade through them.”

“There is no need to-“

“Relief. I missed you so much. I worried for you constantly,” she looked around the camp and at its active eluvian. “Will still worry. I’m angry and I’m sad. You left me again, Solas,” he shook his head, about to begin a preemptive apology, but she continued. She could feel something pressing against her ribcage, eager to be expressed and rising to the bottom of her throat so it was hard to get words out. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t come out easy.

“I- I- I don’t know. It hurts to look at you, but I don’t want to stop. I don’t know what-“ she pressed her hand to her heart, which felt as physically severed from her body as her arm. “There’s too much. Maybe I should-“ she turned to go, but he grabbed her arm much as she had once done to him. He pressed his forehead to hers, breath warming her face and lips brushing against her skin.

“Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

Figuring out the rest would wait for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of an epilogue to finish things off left! I hope you guys don't find the ending too sappy but frankly we could use a little more fluff (and usually I'm all about reading the fluff not writing the fluff so hopefully it isn't terrible ??? also related sidenote fandom needs to write more fluff specifically cuddling fluff that is my JAM)


	5. New Tricks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter.

She was running out of fingers to plug the cracks in her façade. She missed the punchline of Varric’s joke about fine dwarven goods from Orzammar and Dorian’s recitation of a treatise to the magisterium, both spoken to cheer her. They looked at each other, concerned, when they didn’t think she was looking.

Of course their efforts failed. How could anyone separate one pigment from another once the paints were mixed? She was a jumble of greens and purples and reds that all blended into a sickly brown, and she couldn't remember which color happiness was.

She needed an _artist_.

If they noticed her eyes lingering on him or the flap of his tent more than on the Diamondback hand she hadn’t even picked up yet they were kind enough not to say anything.

With Solas, she felt encapsulated in his bubble of winter stillness. The quietude that kept raging emotions at bay. Would she wake up in Skyhold, no memory of their encounter? She hoped not, but thought otherwise.

Eventually Dorian and Varric went home, back through the eluvians. They still didn’t know where the Dread Wolf’s enclave was—other than in another forest. Dorian’s fingers entwined with hers before he left, kissing her on the cheek.

“Be strong, my friend.” She nodded, unsure if she could keep that promise, and watched him disappear behind ancient glass.

“Bright and sad, observes and accepts. In seeing the soul, solace, but sorrows,” Cole said, weaving repeated words from the Herald’s Rest—what seemed an earlier life—with new. This time his words did not seem to be about Solas. She opened her mouth to respond, but a warm hand gripped her shoulder.

“Cole,” he said, his voice low. Cole nodded and moved away, presumably to speak with Fenris, who’d grown somewhat used to Cole’s still-eerie ability to read a person’s thoughts. Which wasn’t to say he enjoyed it, gritted teeth and clenched fists like Cole had physically entered his brain. But tolerated it.

“I’m not going,” she said, voice stubborn against the man behind her.. She thrust her chin out. “And I had Dorian teach me every memory spell he knew that might have roots in elvhen magic, as well as drinking a potion to aid remembrance.”

He moved to stand in front of her, now gripping both her shoulders, but she shook him off, staring him down. He laced his fingers behind his back, meeting her eyes as he might one of his lieutenants.

“You’re not getting rid of me this time. I don’t care what you say or what grand, important reason you have…" “I was not intending to try.” "If I have to wait for you to return from your war I _will_ , Solas, but I will do it from your bed- Wait, what did you just-“ Her eyebrows lifted, face alight from the impassioned speech. She hoped he couldn’t tell she’d been practicing, but she had. From the moment she’d seen him again.

“I have never wanted to rid myself of you, only you of the risk of being with _me_ , _vhenan_ ,” he said, catching her hand where she swung it out of nervousness. "But you are fragile. Mortal. It is…” he shook his head at the catch in his voice. “It is _terrifying_. Time and danger ensures you are no safer in Skyhold than beside me.”

He lifted the hand clenched in his own to his lips, pressing them there before putting his other hand over both. "So, for as long as you wish to remain, you shall.”

She choked, pulling him into a hug and burying her face in the wolf pelt over his shoulder.

 

When the sun rises, filtering through the leafy canopy to paint his tent green, she wakes in his bare arms, his breath even on her neck. There, she lays down her burdens and curls closer to her love, his hand tightening on her waist. There, she knows tranquility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End.
> 
> *waves hand in front of face* no no I've just been ahem chopping onions. I hope you all have enjoyed this little piece that I am so emotionally attached to! If you'd like, subscribe to follow me deeper into the solavellan hellspiral with my other (and generally less painful) fics. I'm a sucker for a happy ending and, as I've said, cuddling.
> 
> Here's Inara, for those curious here at the end: [LINK](http://trevelyawn.tumblr.com/tagged/inara-lavellan)
> 
> Please, please: reactions!


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